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>> Bill Whelan: It's Monday, March 27, 2023, and welcome back to matters of policy and politics, a Hoover Institution podcast devoted to governance and balance of power here in America and around the free world. I'm Bill Whelan, I'm the Virginia Hobbs Carpenter distinguished policy fellow in journalism here at the Hoover Institution. But I'm not the only fellow who's podcasting these days. If you don't believe me, go to our website, which is hoover.org, and check it out for yourself.
Click on the tab at the top of the homepage, it says Commentary. Scroll over to Multimedia, then check out where it says Audio Podcasts. You'll find 17 them in all, all sorts of subjects covered, including what we do here at matters of policy and politics. We also have what we call a monthly pod blast, which is delivered to your inbox monthly. I recommend you sign up for that as well. My guests today are David Brady and Douglas Rivers.
Dave Brady is the Hoover Institution's Davies family senior fellow emeritus and the Bowen H Janus Arthur McCoy professor of political science of the Stanford University Graduate School of Business. Doug Rivers is a Hoover Institution senior fellow and a Stanford University political scientist. He's also a pollster of great renown, chief scientist at YouGov PLC, a global polling firm. They're here to talk about the latest in politics and public opinion. Guys, great to see you.
Thanks for coming back on the podcast. >> David Brady: Thanks for having us. >> Bill Whelan: So circumstance would have it, the three of us did a podcast almost exactly one year ago at this time was March 22 of 2022. The big story then the war in Ukraine and which at the time was just a month old, and the looming midterm elections. We won't get into what we thought would happen in the midterms. That's something we, I think just as soon as sweep under the table.
But a year later, here we are with a different set of distractions for you. There's still the question of Ukraine and the question of America involvement, which ties into the upcoming Republican primaries. There is the health of the Biden presidency. This is assuming he's running a 2024, which we all assume he is always yet to announce. There's the field of republican challengers, three right now, more to come soon.
And the biggest distraction of them all, one, Donald J. Trump, who has been an announced presidential candidate since November 15 of last year. Trump distracts in at least two regards. Number one, his ability to stay in the news and keep noticed. Secondly, the question of how his rivals deal with him when they're insulted, such as Ron Santos has to figure out what to do, plus also how to play his mounting legal woes. Let's begin this podcast, gentlemen.
I'd like to go back a little bit in American history, Dave and Doug, and I wanna take you back to 1973 and the comet Kahotech. >> Doug, do you remember Kahoteche? >> Douglas Rivers: I do. >> David Brady: I do too, a long time ago. But I'm losing the thread here, Bill. Longer ago for me than you, Rivers. >> Bill Whelan: Trust me, I'll close the loop here in about a half an hour, it takes only a minute. The thread is this.
Kohoutek was a comet discovered early in 1973 and America caught what we'd call comet fever. Kohoutek was coming, it was exciting and ballied as the comet of the century. Merchandise was sold, Americans went out at night to look for the comet. I think Dave Brady, living in Houston, Texas at the time, time committed the parental crime of keeping his daughter up at night to go see Kohoutek and there's one problem here. Kohoutek really didn't show up as advertised.
If you look at the statistics on it, I think by the time it finally got here, it was barely visible. The naked eye ended up shining 50 to 100 times fainter than anticipated. I mentioned Kohoutek for this simple reason, for all anticipation. It didn't quite materialize and David, Doug, I think that takes us to the question of Donald Trump and his legal problems at this time. We all sat through last week what I'd call Kohoutek like excitement, waiting for Trump to be indicted.
Nothing happened, here we are yet again, maybe he'll get indicted today. As I mentioned, we're doing this on Monday the 27th. Who knows what the week brings? But there is the question, guys, about Trump and his legal issues and how it plays over the republican field. Doug, you want to take a crack at this and talk about how Trump's legal matters play? >> Douglas Rivers: Yeah, so, so far, Trump's legal problems have not been hurting him. He's stable or even up slightly in the last few months.
Ron DeSantis has had a kind of wobbly month or two and he's now clearly down in the polls to Trump, that doesn't mean he won't win the republican nomination. The polls at this stage aren't terribly reliable. But in terms of Trump leaving the stage, I don't think there's much chance of that. >> David Brady: I agree with Doug, I think one thing that when people point out about Trump phenomena doesn't hurt him. If you look at people who are likely to vote in the primary.
That is if you break it down, so there's a breakdown in the polls where you look at strong Republican, not so strong Republican, weak leaning Republican. If you look at the last YouGov economist poll, Republicans in general were 57% saying Trump should run again. But when you break it down by more likely to vote in the primary, 68% of strong Republicans wanted him to run again. So I agree that I see no sign that this has affected him.
And more importantly, it hasn't affected him among people who are likely to vote in the primary. That is not to say that the indictments might very well hurt him with independence and swing voters who went against him last time and turned the election to Biden. >> Bill Whelan: Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned independence. YouGov, Doug, on top of this story, as always and some interesting poll numbers that you guys put out.
60% of Americans and I quote here, quote, think it's a crime for a candidate to pay someone to remain silent about an issue that may affect the outcome of election. And that breaks down, 81% of Democrats agree with that notion, 60% of Republicans. Interestingly enough though, only 37% of Republicans went along with this notion in 2018. In 2018, now it's up to 73%.
When asked if Donald Trump should face charges, all adults who are surveyed by YouGov, 46% yes, 34% no. Here a partisan divide, gentlemen. 77% of Democrats saying yes, he should face criminal charges, only 14% are Republicans. And Dave, the independent, 44% saying yes, charges, 30% saying no. >> David Brady: Yeah. >> Douglas Rivers: It pretty much breaks down on party lines.
The democratic base would like to see Trump in an orange jumpsuit and the Republican base would like to see him back in the White House. >> Bill Whelan: So you're telling me the more things change, the more they remain the same. >> Douglas Rivers: I think there's widespread agreement that he should be in some kind of federal house. >> David Brady: Yeah, sorry, Doug. It's too early. I mean, it's too early to say that I think the most effective. Nobody has started really attacking a little bit.
Pence talked about 2006 being on the, January 6, sorry, being on Trump and Chris Christie's gone after him. But I think the notion of we lost in 2018, we lost in 2020 and we didn't do well as well in 2022, I think that is still going to play out and will hurt trump some. >> Douglas Rivers: The surprising thing to me is not Trump, because we've learned over the last six years that the Trump base doesn't move.
He truly could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and his supporters wouldn't flock away from him, but Biden is an interesting case. Biden is definitely up about five points in approval from where he was a year ago, but it's still the case that only 25% of the public wants Biden to run in 2024, compared to, I think it's 36 or 38% for Trump I'm looking at.
So it's a bit below Trump in the fraction that want them to run again, to some extent, it looks to me a little bit like years like 1984 or 94 or even 2014, where you have a incumbent president who's not terribly popular, facing trouble in Congress. And the one thing saving him is that the opposition party is in such disarray that if you look at these numbers, and the same was true of Reagan in 1983 or Bill Clinton in 1995, or Barack Obama in 2011.
You're right, Dave. You see these presidents that don't look terribly strong politically, numbers aren't great and end up doing pretty well. And it's certainly in this situation, the fact that there's one piece of the Republican Party that probably the majority wants Trump to run and get reelected, and then there's a decent chunk that thinks that Trump is a disaster politically. So the Republicans don't really have their act together that way.
>> Bill Whelan: Yeah, by the way, Monmouth University had a poll out earlier today, Dave and Doug, polling Democrats on the party and what they discovered, Monmouth did, 44% of Democrats surveyed don't want Biden to run for another term. That number is actually higher among those Democrats who called themselves strongly liberal, 52%. 25% want a second Biden term, 30% had no preference. It then segued, Dave and Doug into, okay, fine, if you don't want Biden to run, name a successor.
Doug, you want to hazard a guess as to who the front runner is? >> Douglas Rivers: None of the above. >> Bill Whelan: Yes, that wonderful non-binary candidate, none of the above. None of the above 51%, Kamala Harris 13%, Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg 6% apiece, Elizabeth Warren, Dave, 4%. >> David Brady: I just checked the last YouGov economist poll that I have access to, which I think most, it's the 18th, 19th, and on that, still plurality want Biden to run, but there's a significant number.
But when you go to strong Democrats, not the very liberal, but strong Democrats, who are the ones, again, more likely to vote in the primary, Biden's yeses go to 53 to 25 no with 21.5, not sure. So while that's not high, it is the case that in addition to the fact that none of these Democrats want to declare because they don't want the standard thing, whenever somebody runs against an income to president, they lose, they get blamed.
They don't want that because a lot of them are looking to the future and running at the presidency. But even taking that into consideration among people more likely to vote in the primary, Biden's better than two to one wanting him to run again. >> Douglas Rivers: I think the Democratic nomination race is basically over, absent some lightning strike. Performance in the midterm was enough to make Democrats think they could win with Biden running again and there's no one running against them.
It's not like the republican side, where there are half a dozen people who are either declared or will be declared as running against Trump. >> David Brady: I absolutely agree with that. I would add that one of the reasons. So all of ceteris paribus, you would say that if the election were held in a month, I think the result would be like it was in 2020, because there are a sufficient number of Republican voters who, when we poll and ask them who you vote for, switch over.
And that number is greater than Democrats switching. And Biden holds his own among independents. But two years, as you know, Bill, is a long time in politics, and who's to say that we won't be in a recession at that time period? So anyone who thinks that just because it was Biden versus Trump, that that means Biden's a surefire winner, that just seems wrong to me. >> Bill Whelan: Right, two years is also a long time to figure out who the Republicans will have as the nominee.
Doug, I went back into the economist YouGov archives to march of 2015 to figure out who the front runner was in March 2015. Doug, since you nailed the first question, you wanna nail this one, too? Who was leading the republican field in mid March of 2015? >> Douglas Rivers: I assume Jeb Bush. >> Bill Whelan: No, no, he was second. >> David Brady: I believe it was the governor of Wisconsin. >> Douglas Rivers: Scott Walker. >> Bill Whelan: Dave Brady for the win.
Scott Walker weighted with 19%, Jeb Bush 14%, Ben Carson 10%. Donald Trump was not in the survey because he was not an announced candidate. And the first time he was- >> Douglas Rivers: Well, it was due to the incompetence of the pollsters. >> David Brady: Yeah, it was us, nobody thought he had a chance. We didn't put him in. >> Bill Whelan: We never blame pollsters on this podcast, we'll let at it.
No, anyway, when Trump made his first debut in a YouGov poll, by the way, 2%, he doesn't get a double digits until he actually makes himself a formal candidate. So anyway, the field could change. >> Douglas Rivers: Sure. I don't think the Republican nomination is predictable, that Trump is definitely weaker now than he was in 2016 or certainly 2020. There are people willing to challenge him and get in fights with him.
You've seen it with DeSantis now and then taking a chop at Trump and Mike Pence as well. So on the Republican side, there is going to be a contested primary. I would just have to say, as it looks at the moment, I would say Trump is more likely than any other candidate to win. >> David Brady: Yeah, I agree with that. But I also think that these other candidates, while they're there, they haven't taken any big swings at Trump.
I thought DeSantis' notion that Ukraine is just a little regional war and it's not of interest to the United States. I thought that was politely kissing up to Trump, staying on the periphery, being on his side. And Nikki Haley hasn't exactly been swinging at him, dancing around, talking about younger people. I think the campaign, the anti Trump campaign hasn't yet really started well.
>> Bill Whelan: Essentially, when you look at how they've handled the would-be indictment in Manhattan over the hush payment to Stormy Daniels. And you'll notice that Haley has done this and DeSantis has done this too. First of all, they go after the prosecutor in no uncertain terms because he's low hanging fruit for a Republican crowd.
But then they turn it on Trump, and while they don't condemn Trump, they make it very clear and let it be known that what's involved here is a fellow cheating on his third wife with a porn star. No bueno among conservative Republicans, I would assume. >> David Brady: And the sales were particularly good, because I agree it was a great attack. Attack the New York prosecutor and then say, well, I wouldn't really know anything about prostitution and bribing them and stuff like that.
I don't know anything about that. So I thought that was a pretty good ploy. >> Bill Whelan: Doug, there were something like, what, 16, 17 Republicans running in 2015, some ungodly number like that. >> Douglas Rivers: The real number was even larger than that. But about 15 real candidates. >> Bill Whelan: Yeah, do you think they'll get to 15 this time? >> Douglas Rivers: I doubt it.
>> David Brady: When we ran the recontact survey, we asked second choices, and frankly, what had happened when you actually run that. So we asked, if Trump's your first choice, who's your second? Anybody else second? Trump was not the second choice of very many candidates. And given the analysis we had, had the sort of mainstream Republicans been able to coalesce around a candidate, looked like they would have done very well, but they couldn't.
I think this time the republican money is going to take care of that, right? I thought what Sununu said about I might get in, but I'll get out real quickly because you can tell whether people think you have a chance. >> Douglas Rivers: Can we talk about Ukraine for a second? The Desantis waffling on Ukraine for a moment, saying we shouldn't be there, and then walking it back and then maybe rewalking it back the other direction was not a good sign for a campaign.
But the polling on this is pretty interesting. Republicans have been less supportive of Ukraine than Democrats. But we ran a bunch of questions in this week's economists, and the first thing is, almost no one, Democrat or Republican, has the warm feelings towards Russia that Trump does. 2% of the Republicans and 3% of the Democrats think Russia is an ally, and 4% of Republicans think Russia is friendly to the United States. So there's just no constituency for supporting Russia.
Ukraine, on the other hand, holds better among Democrats. 45% of Democrats say Ukraine's an ally, only 21% of Republicans. But still there's an additional 49% of Republicans that say Ukraine's friendly to the US. So by 70%, they declare Ukraine friendly or an ally to the US. The problem has been the belief that Russia will eventually win this. Only about 20% of the public thinks Ukraine is actually going to end up winning this conflict.
So to me, this is a situation where Trump and Republican leadership is on, at least the anti-Ukraine ones are on sort of weakly supported positions, and that it could potentially be more helpful to Biden. Whenever the president can focus on a foreign policy issue, tends to benefit. And I don't think they've pushed that to the extent that maybe they could. >> David Brady: I don't disagree with that.
>> Bill Whelan: Yeah, my question, gentlemen, would be when was the last time the Republican Party had a hawkish foreign policy in this regard? Comfort with putting boots on the ground, intervening in other nations, getting involved in international conflicts. You go back to 2000 and what did George Bush run on in 2000? He ran on not gonna do nation building. And I think, Doug, the word he used throughout the campaign when it came to foreign policy was humility.
>> Douglas Rivers: A bit ironic, but I mean, I don't. First, nation building and foreign aid are not popular across the board. What's popular is a strong position for the us military that gets the support of Republicans. And these days it gets pretty strong among Democrats, too. We're not in the 1970s or 80s when there was a big divide on military strength in the US. I think the other thing is that foreign interventions are less popular than they used to be.
Used to be that Republicans were pretty supportive of invading various countries that did things that offended US Democrats less. So the gap between the parties on that has decreased quite a bit. But there isn't a big public constituency for going out there and starting a war. >> Bill Whelan: But Doug, is that a reflection of the first Gulf War which was quick, surgical, over, parades back here in the United States? That was over 30 years ago.
And more recently we've had what, we just had the 20th anniversary of Iraq and we just came out of Afghanistan. >> Douglas Rivers: Yeah, so the first Gulf War, the first year or two of Afghanistan, the first year of Iraq were immensely successful. It showed that the US military was far superior to any rivals around the world and could win conflicts that some people, particularly in the Democratic side, thought would turn into another Vietnam.
But as Afghanistan and Iraq soured, the support for doing another one of those I think is eroded. >> David Brady: Yeah, I agree with that because frankly, Iraq doesn't look all that stable. You may be of the opinion that it was a good thing to get rid of Saddam, but the fact is Iraq is not a bastion of stability there. And the second part, when we got out of Afghanistan, getting out of Afghanistan wasn't exactly smooth. And the result was the headlines.
We had 3000 or 4000 troops there, as I recall. And the Taliban came in and they were going to do x. No problem with women and the headlines coming out of what happened in Afghanistan and particularly to women, given the Taliban, they're not good headlines. So it doesn't look like we won. >> Bill Whelan: I'd like to shift you guys now and talk a little bit about the future of the two parties, which I think is going to be on Americans minds if in 2024 it does end up being a Biden Trump matchup.
You two are very involved in this here at the Hoover Institution. You're doing a future of the Democratic Party project. You're also doing a future of the Republican Party project. And let's talk about the Republicans today. What are you guys up to exactly? When we talk about doing a future of the party project, what does that involve with Hoover? >> David Brady: Well, the first, the first thing we did was, and this has been published, Hoover donors and others have it. And it's a book.
It's in a book edited by Bill Myers and other people called the Elephant in the Room, Donald Trump and the Republican Party. So we had a piece on that bill you worked on and others worked on.
We had a survey that Doug worked on, and we looked at Democratic Republican Party on issues, how the Republican Party had changed over time, the demographics where more college educated voters had moved toward the Democrats and worker people who had less than college degrees had moved toward the Republicans. And we looked at some of the effect of those.
The end of that first report was said, Donald Trump is the situation, then I should turn it over, rather than to Doug or anybody, I should turn it back over to you, Bill. Because at that point, you and Bob Grady and Ben and Susan interviewed a bunch of Republican operatives. That do polling, etc, etc. I don't know if you wanna reveal any names. So that that was going into 2022. And generally, if you talk about what they did, and then the 2022 election just complicates the problem further.
So, at this point, my understanding is you guys are going back and interviewing them again. >> Bill Whelan: Yeah, we are. And I'll keep their names out of it. So they do indeed talk to us again in confidence. So this was something I was involved in that Dave mentioned at his behest. Doug, I guess we all work for Dave Brady in one fashion or another. Spring and summer of last year, I was privileged to sit down with Ben Ginsburg. He's a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution.
As Dave also mentioned, Bob Grady. He's a Hoover overseer who has a long history of the republican party. He worked in the Bush 41 administration. He is close to Chris Christie. I think he went to high school with Chris Christie. And then Susan McCaw is the third person as well, Master Susan McCaw. She's also Hoover overseer. We talked about a dozen consultants in all. And let me give you guys a few highlight points, and we can maybe talk about how the data might translate here.
We discovered the following. First of all, pre Trump, this is a consultant's estimation Pre Trump. Republicans clearly favored limited government, fiscal restraint. A party considered itself culturally conservative, pro defense, but again, restrained governance spending, also supported national defense. Seven years later, this is now, with Trump, still looming over the field, the Republicans, are now less economically conservative, more populist, more isolationist.
A couple of poll quotes here, which we found kind of telling. One consultant said and I quote, the party has gone from Bush to blue collar. Another consultant said, quote, the party is all about the culture wars. Pronouns, bathrooms, racist schools, protect women's sports. >> Douglas Rivers: Yeah, I mean, it's quite a change of Republicans, no longer focusing on the issues that have traditionally been the basis of Republicans. Small government, low taxes, and the culture issues taking over.
The issues that I think are actually effective for Republicans, when I look at the polling, are crime and inflation. On the culture war issues, there are two sides, and the public is probably more on the other side of most of the culture issues than. But on crime and inflation, there is no constituency for crime or inflation. And Biden gets quite poor ratings on that.
And we've seen some races like the Chicago's mayor's race, some of the New York congressional races last time, that showed the vulnerability of Democrats on the crime issue. And I think those actually would work much better for Republicans and the culture war issues. >> Bill Whelan: A second finding from the consultants Dave, we asked what prompted all of this, and their answer was, the root cause here it's the tea party.
It's the tea party fueled by Trump, Obamacare, Solyndra for those of you who forgot what Solyndra is, it's a California based solar company that went bankrupt after receiving about a half a billion dollars in federal loan guarantees. The Obama administration, in the consultants estimation Dave, this created an angry faction of Republican voters, and along comes an angry man, a Donald Trump, who knows how to capture that anger.
>> Douglas Rivers: Yeah, so the Tea party was a bit of a grassroots effort, not a consultant led. And Donald Trump came and added to the tea party. What can you say that Trump added? But it was certainly some secret sauce that supercharged it from being a french thing to something that pulled a whole new constituency into the Republican Party.
And we've got this inversion going at the moment where Republicans are doing better worth with working glass white voters that were the basis for the democratic coalition for a generation. >> David Brady: I would like to say now that I'm unmuted, the 2016 election, Trump was actually also fortunate that he got the best possible establishment opposition candidate that he could have gotten. The woke issue, I agree with Doug, but the woke issues depend upon how far you play it.
So the Republicans on the abortion issue, to the extent that they're playing that issue in the stricter sense, you get Kansas, which is there's no redder state than Kansas. And you get on a referendum about 60, 40, 59 and a half to whatever, you get that 40 and a half, huge win. But if your policy is less strong on abortion and also the same thing on the woke issues, pronouns, et cetera, et cetera, the Democrats go too far.
The Republicans can pick up votes, but the Republicans can go too far on the other side of those issues. So on the whole, I agree with Doug that if you're just looking at the overall picture, probably the culture wars favor the Democrats a bit, but the Democrats can overplay their hand as the Republicans sometimes overplay theirs. >> Bill Whelan: Right, we're going in to interview the consultants again. And that's in part because after we interviewed them, two things happened.
First of all, the Dobbs decision came down and apportioned, suddenly became a big part of the 2022 election. And then secondly, what they had told us during the interviews, which is that the best chance for Republicans is to keep the focus on Biden didn't have a consistent message, which they described as pro parent, pro law enforcement, pro taxpayer. That message got drowned out by Donald Trump's presence again toward the end of the election. So Doug, here we are now.
And again, it's a question moving into 2024. How do Republicans escape the same trap in 2022 where they don't have a clearly defined message and Donald Trump is in the headlines? >> Douglas Rivers: Good luck, because Trump is not willing to play along with this. He was in Waco yesterday, focused on January 6 and the election being stolen from him, which only wins the support of the true believers.
He's making no effort to try to win back the constituencies that Republicans have lost over the last five years. And I don't think he ever will. >> David Brady: I think that's right. I would take, in my view, pretty bad recession for those people to come back and say the people that they've lost. He has still not said, and I don't think he will say that he wouldn't run as a third party candidate if he loses the election, the nomination, I'm sorry.
And he didn't say that in 2016, he didn't do it in 2020. And the odds of his doing it again. And that has to worry Republicans who are worried about losing another election to Joe Biden. >> Bill Whelan: Well, actually, wait a second. If you go back to the first debate in 2015, which was in Cleveland, Republicans hold their first debate where they plan to hold their national convention. There were two big stories coming out of that, both involving Trump in that debate.
One was his crass remarks toward Megyn Kelly, and then the second was Trump very openly suggesting that if he didn't get his way, he might run as a third party candidate. So there was that, briefly it played 2015 and Dave and Doug, we still see this around today. In 2023, the Republicans have a debate in August. They haven't set a date for it.
One of the reasons why they have yet to set a date is because they want, the Republican National Committee wants a loyalty pledge that anybody who goes on the debate stage agrees to support the nominee. But I'm not sure if all the candidates wanna agree to that loyalty pledge. >> Douglas Rivers: My guess is that almost all of the candidates, other than one that would be willing to raise their hand and say they are going to vote for the republican nominee. >> David Brady: Which one would that be?
[LAUGH]. >> Bill Whelan: Nikki Haley. >> David Brady: Yeah. [LAUGH]. >> Bill Whelan: Vivek Ramashami. >> David Brady: Yeah. >> Bill Whelan: No. >> Douglas Rivers: I think most republican professionals believe that Trump is a weaker candidate than many of the other potential republican nominees. That's not to say that Trump would necessarily lose the 2024 election. He almost won the 2020 election.
But I think it's likely that if the Republicans nominated someone other than Trump, they would have a good chance of clawing back some of that support that Republicans have lost in the suburbs to Democrats. >> David Brady: I absolutely agree with that when we've run a couple of runs, Trump versus Biden, DeSantis versus Trump loses to Biden and DeSantis is either. DeSantis is dead even within margin of error.
>> Douglas Rivers: It's usually the other candidates, they have a higher fraction that don't knows, which is what you'd expect at this point. But their unfavorables are lower than Trump. There's essentially, I would say a majority of voters, maybe not a majority of electoral votes are dead set opposed to voting for Trump. They will not consider voting for him. >> David Brady: I think that's probably right. And the big reason is you get the republican.
There are more Republicans who said they would defect. And I'm looking at the last polls we did, there are more Republicans that would defect to the Democrat with the Trump candidacy, that drops dramatically if it's DeSantis. And more importantly, among independents, when it's Trump, Biden does very well. Either is dead even or wins by a little. And if it's DeSantis, Biden loses by over 20 points.
And I think if we, we haven't done it, but I think if we put in some other candidate, Nikki Haley, somebody like that, I think independence would go. Trump is the only one that drives independence to equality with Biden. And any other candidate won't do that. Independents really don't want Biden to run. >> Bill Whelan: So in addition to waiting to see what happens with Donald Trump and his legal travails, there is also the weighty game that is Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
The expectation being that he will jump into the race. June, I think, is what we look at now that's based in part upon his day job in Florida, where he still has a budget to deal with and a legislative session as well. But, Doug, the question getting back to Cohotec, see, I told you I'd bring this around. >> Douglas Rivers: [LAUGH]. >> Bill Whelan: With Cohotec how does Ron DeSantis avoid not being a underperforming comment as well?
I mean, the old cliche, what the best poll you gets the day you announce. So how does DeSantis actually, once he jumps into the race, how does he proceed forward? And this little nugget from the consultants interview stands out. When I get your thoughts on this, too, Doug, a consultant told us, and I quote, people want a combative style of politics. This is a feature, not a bug. >> Douglas Rivers: Yeah, so DeSantis does fine on combativeness.
The place he seems not quite ready for prime time is he's not a natural politician, and he doesn't seem to. Well, he hasn't gone through a national campaign like this, so it's easy for him to screw up the way he did on Ukraine. >> Bill Whelan: Dave. >> David Brady: I think he's gonna have to go after Trump. He hasn't really gone after him again. The little bit of polling I've seen unfollowed that says, trump, you took us down the road. You won in 2016 narrowly.
You lost in 2018, you lost in 2020, and in 2022, you cost us the Senate, just like you did in 2020. You have bad count that has not been hit up enough. And I do think among, even among republican supporters, they don't want to see Biden re-elected. And to the extent that the field of republican candidates can make Republicans worry about if it's Trump, you're gonna get Biden again, then I think that's their best message.
>> Douglas Rivers: So I think DeSantis is trying to avoid the murder suicide pact of him taking on Trump directly and hoping that someone else would do it or Trump would do it to himself. Trump, on the other hand, has taken up attacking DeSantis with Gusto. He's not afraid of that. My guess is that if Trump loses the republican nomination, it will be difficult for him to run a third party race. Not impossible, but difficult.
>> Bill Whelan: To find difficult because you can say difficult in terms of money, difficult in terms of logistics. >> David Brady: You mean the- >> Douglas Rivers: First is logistics Trump is not an organization guy who has the kind of machine necessary to get him on the ballot everywhere. >> Bill Whelan: Second Doug, there are a lot of sore loser laws across America, a lot of them in states that he won in 2016 to 2020.
>> Douglas Rivers: Yeah, I do wonder whether those are constitutional in general. >> David Brady: So we should. >> Bill Whelan: But I can spend money then suing all the states [LAUGH]. >> David Brady: But the viewers, the people listening, they don't know what the soar loser laws are passed in various states, so it differs state to state.
And those laws say something like the following, that someone who loses in a primary can't get back in as a third party candidate, that is, be a sore loser and spoil things. That's a little difficult in presidential elections because think about it, in every president, every president loses a primary somewhere. So if you lose a primary in Texas, so at the federal level, I'm in agreement with Doug.
I think it's a, probably, that law is gonna be less helpful, that less understandable on a national level, and I don't think, but the point is, he doesn't have to be. If he gets involved in four or five big states and pulls 15, 18%, that could be enough. I mean, if he's. >> Douglas Rivers: Dave's definitely right about that. But if Trump wants to be a spoiler, he can. >> Bill Whelan: He will go to Georgia, he'll go to Arizona, he'll go to Nevada, he'll go to Wisconsin.
>> David Brady: Yeah, Texas, probably Texas too. >> Douglas Rivers: As I think I said on an earlier show, the Democratic National Committee should offer to pay his campaign expenses if he's willing to do that. >> David Brady: Yeah. >> Bill Whelan: Okay, since I trotted out a 70 analogy with Cohotec, Doug, I'm gonna try another 70 analogy out on you. And that is the game show let's make a deal, remember Monty Hall? How did let's make a deal work?
There was door number one, door number two, and door number three, we've talked. >> Douglas Rivers: This is beginning to sound like a probability problem. >> David Brady: That's why I was asking you. >> Bill Whelan: We have talked door number one with Trump, door number two with DeSantis. But the question would be, and this is always a feature on let's make a deal, what's behind door number three? And here I'm focusing on one person.
In particular, that is Tim Scott, the junior senator from South Carolina, who has a lot of money right now. So he has a good war chest who can go out and spend. So you can see a lot of ads from Fox News and so forth. But David Doug, what captures what has my attention about Scott, he's a nice guy and he is running on optimism and a better America. He is not really spending a lot of time, as DeSantis and Trump do, kind of attacking, attacking, attacking.
He is talking up his own biography, his grandfather who's literate and so forth. The question, gentlemen, is there room for aspirational politics in today's Republican Party? >> Douglas Rivers: Iowa's a pretty good state for somebody like him, that there's a large evangelical population. Trump is a little less popular there than he is in most republican states, and he lost there in 2016 to Ted Cruz.
The thing people are thinking about is, can someone upset Trump in an early primary and then does his support fold at that point, I'm suspicious of any forecast that Donald Trump is going to disappear, but that's how it could happen. That he loses Iowa, and followed by a loss in New Hampshire, and his campaign would be on the ropes and maybe out. >> David Brady: That's why I was saying earlier that the best campaign against Trump is you actually lost in 2016, the popular vote.
You lost in 2018, 2020, 2022, and now you're losing these primaries. You're gonna cost us the presidency, and you may remember, and I think it was 1948 at the Republican convention where, no, I'm 52. >> Douglas Rivers: You remember that, Bill. >> David Brady: 52, where, well, it's a historical point, I'm sorry, you probably were born- >> Bill Whelan: You went back to the 70s, he's back in the 50s.
>> David Brady: In 1952, when Thomas Dewey, who lost the presidency for the Republicans in 44 and 48, they pointed to him and said, you took us down the trail, the wrong trail, twice, blah, blah, blah, and he went nowhere. So I still think that's the best issue. And losing one or two of those early primaries builds on that point. So I think that's the best campaign against him.
And at the margin, some of his voters, they may be really like him or like his policies, but they're not gonna wanna lose. And that, the question is, how many of those voters are there? I think there's enough of them to keep him from the nomination. >> Bill Whelan: But the other question, Dave, is, are those voters transferable? If Trump were to go down to the primaries, will his people vote for a Republican in the general election?
Or will they sit it out, or they channel that energy into some gadfly further down on the ballot? >> Douglas Rivers: Well, what we know is very few people sit out elections who are voting presidential primaries. They're unhappy, but they tend to get over it. I think the wild card here is that Trump, is unlikely to just go quietly. >> David Brady: The best evidence for what Doug just said was exactly right, is what happened.
The third party candidacy of George Wallace, and then the third party candidacy of Ross Perot, those started out much higher. And as you get closer to the election, it falls away because it looks like it's a wasted vote and you get much more results that are much closer to the normal result. Still, not to say that neither of those candidates made a difference. They did, but the fall off, as you get closer to the election and people who say they're voting for them is pretty dramatic.
>> Bill Whelan: Yeah, but I'm curious about the transferability, cuz Trump did go around the country in 2022. And he campaigned for Dr Ross in Pennsylvania, and he campaigned for Kerry Lake, and he campaigned for Herschel Walker. And what do those people have in common? They lost. >> David Brady: Yeah, I thought they all won, actually. Just kidding, just kidding. >> Bill Whelan: That's who you talk to.
>> Douglas Rivers: [LAUGH] Well, Trump, if he starts losing Republican primaries, say they're stolen from him. >> Bill Whelan: No, it's a fascinating element to watch, because there is such a thing as getting out with grace. And there's nobody better who exemplifies that than Kamala Harris, who ran a very problematic Democratic campaign. But she did two things that were smart in retrospect.
Number one, she used the debate stage to pick a fight with Joe Biden, which got her noticed and got her to the front of the pack. And then secondly, when her campaign went down the drain, she was smart enough to get out in December of 2019 before she went through the gauntlet of Iowa and New Hampshire, South Carolina. And had embarrassing performances and also racked up a lot of campaign debt and future headaches. So there was such a thing as getting out early.
But I just don't know if Donald Trump has it in his DNA to say, I quit. >> Douglas Rivers: Didn't work for Scott Walker. >> David Brady: Excuse me, excuse me. You absolutely do know, Bill, whether he has it in his DNA to get it out, and the answer is no. >> Bill Whelan: I was trying to do the more academic speculation. >> David Brady: I saw that, I saw that. >> Douglas Rivers: We're impressed, though.
>> Bill Whelan: So let's close on this note, gentlemen, since you follow the polls, you studied the polls for the listener out there who likes to follow the horse race, likes to see these dynamics once they really start bothering to look at these things. To me right now, looking at polls head to head, Dave, opening day is on Thursday. So to me, looking at what's going on in Iowa right now, in New Hampshire, that's like getting excited about spring training in Arizona. >> Douglas Rivers: Exactly.
>> David Brady: Wait a minute, getting excited about spring training in Arizona is probably a little more relevant. >> Bill Whelan: The idea we're gonna follow these scores in some team that's ten games above 500 in the Cactus League, they're gonna win the World Series. It doesn't work out that way. >> David Brady: No, that prediction doesn't work, but there's real balls, and strikes and there's real games and it's just all games and no elections here. I don't know what.
Doug, when do you say they should start paying attention? >> Douglas Rivers: Labor Day. >> David Brady: December this year. >> Bill Whelan: He says Labor Day. >> Douglas Rivers: We'll have a much better view of things after the summer's over. That it's hard, not impossible, but time is running out for you if you're not competitive in September, October. >> David Brady: And these people must- >> Douglas Rivers: Also have plenty of debates at that point.
>> David Brady: But they must also be getting signals from donors now. And a part of the Republican donors have decided they don't want Donald Trump. He didn't get a cloud endorsement, so we have to see about that. >> Douglas Rivers: But he's the one candidate that doesn't need donors. A, he's got a bunch of money, and B, everyone's opinion about Donald Trump is already fixed. >> David Brady: I doubt that, but those donors- >> Douglas Rivers: The effect of money on Trump support is negligible.
>> David Brady: That's not what I meant, I'm talking about the other candidates. Those donors ought to be trying to hone in on who has the best chance against him. >> Bill Whelan: Well, those other candidates, Dave, are gonna have to figure out a very good social media donation game because something has changed here, and that's the ability to raise money over the Internet. I went back and did some homework on George W Bush's run in 2000 because I've been trying to parallel the DeSantis.
And Bush got in in June of 1999, had a huge lead in the field. I mean, just had about 50, 60% of support in the field. It was not really a competitive race until next year when it became kind of came out of nowhere, but he then had to go about and physically raise money. I remember this being here in California, he would come out a lot and make appearances. Because back then, people just did not like to make campaign contributions over this newfangled thing called the Internet.
Fast forward now to the candidates and running in 2024, and look for this with DeSantis. So on the day he announces, he will do what's called a money bomb. He will, at the same time, try to raise an obscene amount of money over the Internet just to show how strong he is. Interesting note, by the way, Trump did this with his legal travails after he announced that he was gonna be indicted last week, which didn't happen, he also did a money bomb.
He only got a million dollars in his money bomb, which, by Trump standards, by national candidate standards, pretty paltry. >> David Brady: What did DeSantis do? >> Bill Whelan: But he raised a great gob of money and his governor's race, I'll be part of the expectation. The point is, you can go to the Internet and raise a lot of money, but you gotta do it through small donors, not big bundlers. It means you go to social game, it means you've gotta be out there and active, in other words.
But it also means you gotta find your way to wedge yourself into this race if the auction is gonna be consumed by Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis. >> Douglas Rivers: No disagreement there. >> Bill Whelan: No disagreement. >> David Brady: Same here. >> Bill Whelan: Okay, all right, gentlemen, I'm gonna leave it at that. Enjoyed the conversation today. I'm glad you enjoyed our little trip into the 70s with Cohotek and [LAUGH] back into the 50s with [LAUGH] Natalie Stevenson, was it?
>> Douglas Rivers: I think it was the 40s with Thomas Dewey. >> David Brady: Can we do Bob Dylan next time in the 70s, change the country music then, can we do that? >> Bill Whelan: [LAUGH] That's right. The answer is, my friend, they're blowing in the wind, right? >> David Brady: Yes [LAUGH]. >> Bill Whelan: Okay, well, gentlemen, thanks for conversation today, thanks for coming on the podcast.
As per usual, keep doing the great work and look forward to working with you on the future of the Republican and Democratic parties. You've been listening to Matters of Policy and Politics, the Hoover Institute podcast devoted to governance and balance of power here in America and around the globe. If you've been enjoying this podcast, please don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe to our show. If you wouldn't mind, please spread the word, get your friends to have a listen.
The Hoover Institution has Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter feeds, our Twitter handle is @hoverinst, that's Hoover I-N-S-T. Dave Brady is not on social media, but Doug Rivers is. His Twitter handle is @doug_rivers. YouGov is excellent polling company is also on Twitter. Twitter handle there is @yougov, that's spelled Y-O-U-G-O-V. I mentioned our website beginning of the show, that's hoover.org. While you're there, sign up for the Hoover Daily report.
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